


Pawnee, Indiana: It’s Safe to Be Here Now

by Treesinthewind



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 16:16:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Treesinthewind/pseuds/Treesinthewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Ben Wyatt suspects that Pawnee is his home now, and one time he knows for sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pawnee, Indiana: It’s Safe to Be Here Now

**1\. He blames something on Jerry**

They’re in the middle of a planning meeting for the Harvest Festival, and Leslie wants to keep working through lunch, so Ben jots down everyone’s lunch order and gives it to Jerry to go pick up.

When April unwraps her sandwich, she glares at Ben. (Or rather, she glares more than usual.)

“This has mayonnaise on it,” she says, pushing away the sandwich. “I hate mayonnaise.”

Ben goes blank for a moment, trying to remember whether she’d told him that, whether he’d written it down. He’s pretty sure that neither of those things happened, but still, he finds himself saying, “Dammit, Jerry. I definitely wrote ‘no mayonnaise’ on April’s order.”

“Oh jeez, April, I’m sorry,” Jerry says immediately. “I’ll go get you a new one.”

“I want a bag of chips, too, since you screwed up my order.”

“Of course. Does anyone else want anything?”

“God, Jerry, just leave already,” Leslie says. “We have work to do.”

Ben watches all of this unfold, and the first thought that comes to mind is, “Good God, they’re turning me into one of them.”

* * *

**2\. He receives a Christmas card from Ethel Beavers**

His first Christmas in Pawnee, Ben receives two Christmas cards from town residents. The first is a handmade card from Leslie that includes an extended personal message. The second is a store-bought card whose standard message of “wishing you a happy holiday season” is followed only by Ethel Beaver’s signature.

He sets both of them on the bedside table in his new room in April and Andy’s house, one of the few personal touches he allows himself, because every time he talks to April or Andy about, you know, _anything_ , he promises himself that he’s moving out as soon as he can.

Every night, as he turns out the light, he looks at those cards, and a warm feeling wells up in his chest. Given how much his thoughts stray to Leslie these days, it’s no surprise that her heart-felt message inspires this reaction, but the fact that Ethel Beavers’ impersonal card inspires the same response is a little stranger.

In the end, he decides, it’s this—he’s pretty sure that Leslie sends personalized cards to everyone she has ever met, ever, in her entire life, and while this doesn’t make her card any less special, it sort of makes Ethel Beavers’ card seem all the more thoughtful. Leslie has room for so many people in her heart, but from the few times he’s interacted with her around City Hall, Ben knows that Ethel Beavers doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

So if Ethel Beavers has included him on her Christmas card list, he thinks, then maybe he did make the right decision to stay in Pawnee.

* * *

**3\. JJ knows his order**

Three weeks after he and Leslie break up so that she can run for City Council, Ben goes to JJ’s for breakfast. He hasn’t been there since the break-up, and the only reason he risks it that day is because he knows that Leslie has a campaign breakfast with potential donors, so he knows she won’t be there. (JJ’s is catering her event, which he figures is the only way her campaign team got her to agree to a breakfast event.)

He waves at JJ as he slides into a booth, then picks up the menu and begins to study it, even though he pretty much knows it by heart at this point. When he hears footsteps approaching his table, he’s ready to put in his usual order, but instead he looks up to find JJ already carrying a plate of food for him.

“I haven’t ordered yet.”

JJ shrugs. “Yeah, but I know your order.”

Ben looks down at the cheese omelet and sausage on his plate. “I usually get homefries.”

“Yeah, but you never eat them, you just let Leslie steal them all. So I thought you might like sausage instead. That’s what you used to get when you first came to town.”

He blinks at JJ in surprise. For months now, he’s seen his every interaction through the veil of his relationship with Leslie, and since they broke up, he’s been wondering if there’s really any reason for him to stay in Pawnee. But here, unexpectedly, is a reminder that he had started to find a place for himself in this town before he even really knew her.

“Thanks,” he says to JJ, picking up his fork.

The sausage is delicious.

* * *

**4\. A Mouse Rat song comes up on his iPod Shuffle**

He’s driving home to Minnesota for his sister’s birthday, and just as he crosses the Wisconsin state line on Route 90, a song comes up on his iPod that he finds himself humming along to even before he consciously registers what the song is. He smirks to himself a little when he recognizes it as “Two Birds Holding Hands.”

About an hour later, when Mouse Rat comes up an unprecedented _second_ time (given the number of songs on his iPod, the odds of this happening are quite low, and he should know, because he’s an accountant, or at least used to be), he grins and sings along unashamedly to “5000 Candles in the Wind.”

For a moment or two, he almost even misses Li’l Sebastian.

Almost.

* * *

**5\. Pawnee becomes the third most obese city on the national Top 100 Cities list.**

Ben hears that Pawnee has moved up to the #3 spot on the list of obese cities nationwide on his way to work one morning, his car radio tuned to “Ira and the Douche.”

His first thought is, “Suck it, San Antonio.”

His second thought is that ‘First in Friendship, Third in Obesity’ lacks some of the alliterative poetical ring that ‘First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity’ has.

It’s only with his third thought that he remembers that, oh yeah, obesity isn’t something to be proud of.

* * *

* * *

  **1\. Leslie says yes.**

“Leslie Knope, will you—”

“Yes.”

Leslie says yes, and Leslie _is_ Pawnee, its best and its worst rolled up in one amazing woman, so if she says yes, if she wants to spend the rest of her life with him, then Pawnee really is home.


End file.
